I am trying to put Aladdin on a US cart the same as I have done with Banana Prince or Uforia. It uses an AOROM which I have done before with RC Pro Am 2 or Battletoads and Double Dragon. The game starts fine and goes through story at the beginning. As soon as gameplay starts the game freezes and graphics are garbled. I have verified that all mapper info and RAM size are the same for this and my donor cart. Does anyone know why this would happen with this game? If so please let me know. Thanks

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lidnariq [ Mon Sep 26, 2016 7:38 pm ]

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Re: Aladin reproduction on US cart - help

You almost certainly somehow miswired the latch.

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Coryvet7799 [ Mon Sep 26, 2016 7:46 pm ]

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Re: Aladin reproduction on US cart - help

Here is what I have done. Can you please correct where I have gone wrong. I am using AM27C040 and yes I have doubled the 256K rom to fill all the memory.

Hole 1 to pin 30Pin 16 to pin 24Hole 24 to pin 2

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dude3585 [ Mon Sep 26, 2016 8:39 pm ]

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Re: Aladin reproduction on US cart - help

Having somewhat same issue with The Lion King. Wasn't aware pinout was needed? Also had to double up the EPROM.

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Coryvet7799 [ Mon Sep 26, 2016 8:42 pm ]

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Re: Aladin reproduction on US cart - help

Hopefully someone on here can help with our issue that has successfully done these games. Please help

Note that AOROM may or may not have bus conflicts depending on the original ROM you removed. You might need to add an inverter to convert CPU R/W into ROM /OE.

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calima [ Tue Sep 27, 2016 4:34 am ]

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Re: Aladin reproduction on US cart - help

Remember that not all PAL games can be run on a NTSC console, if they make use of the longer vblank for example.

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HVC-Man [ Tue Sep 27, 2016 12:30 pm ]

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Re: Aladin reproduction on US cart - help

PAL Aladdin and The Lion King don't work properly on NTSC NES consoles.

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dude3585 [ Tue Sep 27, 2016 1:51 pm ]

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Re: Aladin reproduction on US cart - help

Quote:

Hole 1 to pin 30Pin 16 to pin 24Hole 24 to pin 2

Thought for AxROM you just replace the with a eprom?

Checking for continuity is a great idea. For now I got a cheap free one that works for continuity minus the beep. Says zeros if connection is good if I remember correctly. Might be useless for these 2 days though if this Vbank thing doesnt have a work around. Anyone know if there is a way to fix this issue? Seems there isnt from what I read here http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/The_frame_and_NMIs#VBlank.2C_Rendering_Time.2C_and_NMIsToo technical for me but Im guessing you would need to hexedit the rom to get anywhere. Way above my head. If there is a rewiring with the chips or something that would be very helpful for us I think. Rather than having to desolder chip, erase, edit rom, ect.

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Coryvet7799 [ Tue Sep 27, 2016 4:06 pm ]

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Re: Aladin reproduction on US cart - help

Thank you to everyone that has commented on this post. The reason is not due to a wiring issue, but due to the reason most have posted about. It is that this PAL game will not display correctly in a US NES. I believe it has something to do with the Hz the game is running at. For confirmation I had the game tested on a retron 5 and it played flawlessly.

Author:

tokumaru [ Tue Sep 27, 2016 5:13 pm ]

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Re: Aladin reproduction on US cart - help

dude3585 wrote:

Thought for AxROM you just replace the with a eprom?

Generally it's not the mapper that dictates this, it's the ROM size. Chips that are 64KB or smaller often work as is, but anything larger than that will most likely need rewiring.

Coryvet7799 wrote:

For confirmation I had the game tested on a retron 5 and it played flawlessly.

Which is not definitive proof that the cart works, though. Since the Retron 5 just dumps ROMs for playing in an emulator, it only proves that your PRG-ROM was programmed and soldered correctly, but there could still be something wrong with the CHR-RAM or the lockout chip preventing the cart from working on an actual NES. I'm not saying this is the case here, all I'm saying is that using the Retron 5 is far from being the best way to verify that a game cartridge is functional.

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Coryvet7799 [ Fri Sep 30, 2016 1:54 pm ]

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Re: Aladin reproduction on US cart - help

I also verified another way someone turned me onto. I did not see this at first running it on nestopia as nestopia will default to the correct setting which was pal. If you put the region to ntsc and try running this rom it acts the same as it does when I try to run it on my nes. I wish I could test the cart on a PAL NES but I am having a hard time finding one.

Author:

koitsu [ Fri Sep 30, 2016 2:12 pm ]

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Re: Aladin reproduction on US cart - help

It's now been confirmed, and even admitted by the OP, that the game in question won't work on NTSC consoles. The reason it works on a Retron 5 is because the console is not a "NES clone", it is little more than an emulator, which means through software (think: the firmware on the Retron 5) the system is able to deal with PAL/NTSC timing differences -- actual NES consoles (the real hardware) cannot. Nestopia is also an emulator, thus is able to accomplish the same thing the Retron 5 can.

So what exactly are you trying to do now? Testing a PAL repro cart you made for a region that you can't test on?

Are you aware that you aren't going to be able to use a PAL NES on 1) US television sets (at least most/many won't work with it) (voltage/freq issue described in #3 applies), 2) US electrical (you'll need an actual step-up or step-down transformer, not just a "wall outlet adapter", because the voltage between EU and US usually differs (often 220V vs. 120V, as well as the wavelength being 50Hz instead of 60Hz), and 3) needing PAL NES controllers (you cannot use NTSC controllers on a PAL NES, while you can use PAL controllers on an NTSC NES -- explanation here is legitimate, it's caused by a pull-up resistor)? You're up against several complications.

A more economical and reasonable approach, I would think, would be to send the cartridge you've wired to someone who does have a PAL NES and see if it works for them. There are probably people here in the US who have PAL NESes for testing (they'd need all 3 of the above things), but sending it to someone overseas would work as well.

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Coryvet7799 [ Fri Sep 30, 2016 4:28 pm ]

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Re: Aladin reproduction on US cart - help

Not trying to accomplish anymore for this. I was just responding to the last person who posted a reply to my question. I really appreciate the info for the PAL nes. I will just stick with the retron 5 for playing this game. It would cost more in shipping to figure anything else out when it plays fine on the retron. Thank you everyone for your help.

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dude3585 [ Fri Sep 30, 2016 7:09 pm ]

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Re: Aladin reproduction on US cart - help

I gave it a try because it said this in famiROM. Thought it was strange but gave it a go anyways. That must be just reading my own tv/monitor. Guessing why it says "default". Oh well worth a shot. Im going to put foil on the board and heat gun the chip out. Unless u got one of those good desoldering guns. Only got a cheap desolder sucker myself for now. Works great if u wanna try save the chip. Long as u didnt clip the pins. Just throwing that option out there:)